Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Feb. 6th, 2023

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

I was asking about the appointment of the commissioner and directors, and about comments that had been made.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

We had the offer with respect to the appointment of the commissioner and the directors translated into several languages, but I can't remember how many.

We went broad when we were looking for the commissioner and the directors, and we also translated the offer into nine languages. We went to different communities in their own languages to see if there were interested people.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Mrs. Gill.

Ms. Idlout, you have two and a half minutes.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Thank you.

We who are indigenous have rights, but I think our rights are lesser than those of the French and English when it comes to our languages.

You have been a minister for quite a while now. What would you recommend for changes for the indigenous languages and indigenous rights to make them equal with English and French rights?

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

We can certainly do better in terms of service delivery. The rights associated with indigenous languages are mentioned in section 35 of the Constitution. They are not defined because it's not up to us to define them. That's for you to do, but we are going to work with you to get it done.

Some of the rights of indigenous peoples are clearly related to the indigenous languages. One way of changing things, specifically with respect to the Inuit, would be to offer more services. That, moreover, was one of the requests made by Ms. Aluki Kotierk, with whom I have worked extensively. We have not always agreed, but I have an enormous amount of respect for her because she knows her file and defends it with a great deal of courage. Our discussions were frequently about services.

We are currently trying to assess service delivery requests more accurately. A committee of assistant deputy ministers was struck to establish the government's capacity to provide these services and how to offer more of them.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Under section 35, it appears that indigenous people do not have a lot of rights. We have rights in Nunavut under the Inuit Language Protection Act. We have official languages that include Inuktitut, but not enough people who work for Service Canada or for CanNor speak Inuktitut. Many Inuit, 85% of Inuit in Nunavut, speak Inuktitut only and expect to be served in their language, but federal government employees do not speak Inuktitut when providing the services. Even under that section, it doesn't seem to be making any difference at all to have that right.

Our rights are not being adhered to. With section 35, if you are going to implement it.... How can we change that so that Inuit can be equally served in their indigenous language by your federal employees?

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

The situation is not static. You're right to say that what we're providing is inadequate. If we were to say right now that we weren't going to do any more, then I'd agree with you that it's not enough.

As I was saying before, a committee of assistant deputy ministers was created to review what the government is currently doing in terms of services, and what we are capable of doing. The challenge is not related to our willingness to provide services in Inuktitut, but rather that there are currently too few people who have the ability to perform these duties.

It's important to establish the needs with respect to the most important services, our ability to provide these services, and how to strike a balance between them. We need to determine what has to be done in order to have more people within our structures who can provide services in your language.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Ms. Idlout.

We'll complete round two, but given the time, there will be three minutes for a Conservative intervention and three minutes for a Liberal intervention.

We will start with Mr. Vidal.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, I got through most of my questions before, but I have one other that I'd like to get to.

I was doing some digging on your website this afternoon, and under the indigenous languages and cultures program, there's a second component. We talked about the indigenous languages component, but there's also the northern aboriginal broadcasting component of that program. In the riding I come from in northern Saskatchewan, that's a pretty big deal. The radio stations in many of these northern communities are a huge mechanism for them to communicate. In the context of indigenous languages, I think they're also a mechanism for maintaining and enhancing.

I'd be curious to get a bit of information and your perspective on the importance of those, and possibly on how some of those small community radio stations that are frustrated with their ability to exist.... The cost of existing in that context is really, really high. I'm wondering if you might have any advice for them on how to better access the system and on how we could support them—that perspective, if that makes sense.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

That's a great question.

My answer is fundamental. On what the role is, it is fundamental. The problem, Mr. Vidal, that we've seen in the last 15 years is that those small communities—but also big ones—are disappearing. Why? Because the ad revenue is going to two big players, honestly. Google and Facebook are getting 80% of all the advertising, which has had the impact of closing 460 media outlets: small and big radio stations and small and big papers, both local and city. The solution we put in place is a $50-million program to help local media outlets. There is also the $6-million program for tax credits on la main d'oeuvre—I don't know how to say that—

[A voice]

Workforce.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

It's manpower.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Yes, manpower in the newsrooms.

Also, there's another bill coming, you'll be happy to know, Mr. Vidal: Bill C-18. That's coming. That will ask the big techs that are receiving $8 billion out of $10 billion to contribute to those small newsrooms.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

When you talk about those numbers, though, in fairness, Minister, I don't think those little indigenous language radio stations in small remote communities were generating a whole bunch of ad revenue. They're just trying to survive, probably on grants, and probably, honestly, on fundraising in their own communities.

When you talk about those big numbers, I'm guessing you're using much larger numbers relative to the nationals, but not specifically to this northern aboriginal broadcasting component, these small, northern, indigenous language community radio stations and stuff. I think you're talking about a bigger picture, and I would rather you focus just on these.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

This includes everyone specifically in Bill C-18, because to be excluded, let's say, from the bill and not touched by the bill, the tech giants will need to have deals with a huge bunch of media across the country, including small local radio media, which will have the power to negotiate collectively. They won't be negotiating alone. They will be negotiating with other groups, and it will give more balance in terms of discussion. This will allow them, as has been the case in Australia, for example, to get more money for that.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Chair, I'm probably out of time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Yes, Mr. Vidal. Thank you.

We'll conclude with Mr. McLeod.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question for the minister is in regard to a presentation I heard from the AFN. It was their presentation about languages. They talked about 82 different indigenous language groups across the country. They expect only three languages to survive if we keep doing things the way we're doing them now.

There's been a lot of activity in the last while on indigenous languages, and it's really exciting to see. We've heard a lot of presentations over the last number of meetings we've had. Our witnesses all claim that investment in their language has to be on par with the French and the English.

For the English language, you can go to a nice facility with trained staff, and for French it's the same, but it's not the same when it comes to indigenous languages. In fact, I have an indigenous language speaker and instructor who walks around in the shop with all his material in a shopping cart and parks it in the janitor's room at night. There's no comparison.

My question is, in the government's vision, can we expect investment in the indigenous languages to be on par with investment in the French and English?

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

What I want is the investment to increase, which it already did.

Now, if we say to compare it to English and French, I'm not sure what we're talking about in terms of comparisons, because the plan for official languages is around $500 million, I think—the whole plan. In this case, we're close to $1 billion for indigenous languages. It depends on what we compare.

What I want—I don't want to get into too much detail on official languages, as my friend who is the minister there can answer—but what I want is more money.... On that thing of saving three of them—no way. There's no way. Since the start, we've invested in I'd say about a thousand projects. That touches 77 languages.

That's 77, and if we can go higher, we'll go higher, but I think the key for us, regardless, is to transfer the decision to indigenous groups—to first nations, to Métis, to Inuit—where they will sit down and make decisions based on their own needs and what's most urgent: what's more strategic to preserve the language, what's more strategic for the youth, and what's more strategic in the long term.

It's their decision, not ours, and, to be honest, the negotiations are going extremely well and we hope to get deals this year, which would pretty much take all the roles away from PCH and give them to them, because that's how it should be.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Mr. McLeod.

We'll have to call it a day there.

Thank you, Minister, and I would also like to thank you colleague Mr. Pelletier, for having come to answer our questions with respect to our study of indigenous languages, a subject of considerable importance. We are very grateful.

Our next meeting will be on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m.

We will be undertaking committee business next Wednesday.

Thank you very much.

I call this meeting adjourned.